Silveranstavern interview

I interviewed silveranstavern (as you can see, the video was recording the game I was playing during the interview, in which I was only doing a fishing minigame to acquire resources, which I do during interviews because this takes approximately 0% of my attention).

Some observations that I jotted down to myself while I was reviewing this interview:

Slow, contemplative cadence of speech.

Silverantsavern presents himself very quickly as an open book, a straightforward person willing to let the interviewer, and the listener, peer inside his brain pretty openly. Within the first few minutes (2:00) he discusses also his explicit principle of openness, and provides a relevant example of his upcoming ayahuasca experience. He has a relaxed, easy disposition, as if inviting the listener to be at ease in the conversation.

He is inclined to somewhat bold actions, including for example (25:00) moving to Colombia without knowing the language. This was an intentional move, perhaps not a spontaneous action, but quite a bold, life-changing one.

Silveranstavern demonstrates some spontaneous revealing of tangible, intimate details. Compared to some people that are really allergic to being specific and inclined to generalize, Silveranstavern's openness extends into telling his history in really a lot of unfiltered detail, although in many ways, maybe in more of the interview when not guided by my specific requests to discuss some examples, he often drifts into speaking abstractly, and philosophically about complicated and spiritual topics. It's easy (for me) to imagine him, in a different conversation and a different context, eliding much specificity about what he's talking about and talking abstractly himself indirectly through buddhist phenomology, without all that much slice of life to connect it to reality -- although, maybe not, that's not how our conversation went, and the interview context is an artificial context which different people approach very differently.

The section starting around 26:00 where silveranstavern discusses the circumstances of his first marriage and his exiting that situation with children that are not fully grown, is interesting for its window into silveranstwavern's emotionality and his choices in challenging emotional situations -- and also, for his selective attention to describing in laborious detail his own emotional responses, while not focusing much on how other people felt about his actions. He seems to have a disinterest in narrating other people's points of view, and maybe even a sort of flippancy about discussing other people's emotions, almost as though it's pointless to focus on or speculate about, others' inner states.

The section and its story displays a high level of adaptability and flexibility, and willingness to take life as it comes, but also a deeply resigned passivity -- an expectation that other people will do what they will do, and there is no point in ever trying to change them or fight about the circumstances of one's life (or, in this case, his childrens' lives, either -- something that some people fight vociferously over). I don't believe this passivity is only a product of buddhist self-awareness, I think this "passive, relaxed attitude" runs more deeply and has always been there (and at points in the interview, he seems to affirm this idea that he has always been chill), although maybe it's true silveranstavern's experience with mindfulness makes him more inclined to specifically ruminate about his experiences that are in his control, and not to talk about other people who aren't in his control.

There is some explicit mention at times of the principles, ethos, or "code" used to live by (28:30).

Silveranstavern gives a pretty good, detailed overview of his kids' personalities and character. He is capable of discussing in some detail the character of others (which he was clearly prompted to do).

At 1:44:00, there is a relatively open, unfiltered conversation about silveranstavern's perception that he is a "lighthearted" person, that he prefers to be lighthearted rather than serious, although he also mentions in his self-perception that he has the ability to create a degree of seriousness at appropriate moments in life, while preferring nonetheless to travel through life more lightheartedly. While this is all self-perception that he tells me rather than shows me, it is consistent with his chilled out disposition throughout the entire interview.

At 1:53:00, there is a short, but interesting conversation about nonmonogamy in which silveranstavern describes that his current relationship is founded on the principle of "relationship anarchy" -- which seems, in addition to being an unusual way of approaching relationships, very abstractly codified, and also, maybe returns to the concept above of regarding inner emotional states, (as in, in this context, other people's expectation about how relationships might develop) with some degree of flippancy.

I type Silveranstavern as an LII. Broadly, the most important themes that stand out to me as principally influential from the interview, are silveranstavern's chilled-out relaxedness, his interpersonal passivity and lightheartedness (i.e., nonseriousness) that he discusses, with which he traverses through life. This passivity is characteristic of Si-valuing introverts, and is a very separate way of being than the indifference and usually more substantial judgments of Ni valuing types. Ni dominant types are passive in their own ways, and also have capacity with Se suggestive for bold action (that is often inconsistent) -- and silveranstavern shows a capacity for bold action, but also an overall really loose, lighthearted, chilled approach to his surrounding circumstances. It took me some time in the interview to unpack the complex, abstract, and generally buddhism-influenced self-presentation, but when I understood this chilledness, it left me clearly with the idea of an Si valuing type, and in particular, of an Fi-devaluing Si-valuing type, with a more distant connection to seriousness. The LII with Fi role has a pattern, where they sometimes have a sort of almost-but-not-quite scornful attitude towards people who are too emotional, who can't seem to figure out how to "relax" to the engagement level of their surroundings. The LII type is outwardly subdued, and also, usually subduedly respectful of others' expressions of sincerity, and so this almost-scornful-but-not-quite reaction is not always outwardly obvious, but they nonetheless may find it overbearing, although also tolerable and doable, to focus on inner emotional states for too long, whether themselves or others, and they may also desire not to subject others to too much of their own inner turmoil.

I think silveranstavern might not see himself as "flippant" as I described above, with respect to understanding, navigating, and describing, other people's inner emotional states. Although he may not see himself as regarding others' emotions with flippancy, he probably would nonetheless agree that he focuses, and in this focused infinitely more, on his own inner state of mind, than speculating or describing the actual or hypothetical states of mind of others, something he did very little of in comparison to his own very lengthy and very precisely analytical description of his own motivations for his actions. Regardless of exactly the words used to describe it, in my view this flippancy or inattention to the emotions' of others, coming short of a wholesale indifference or incompetence at dealing with emotional situations, but maybe a light preference not to a lot of the time, is totally fitting with Fi role in the alpha quadra where a preference for positive emotionality is predominant. This is the primary piece of evidence that points me to a particular quadra.

It's also easy to see silveranstavern's unrestrained openness as like that of Ne ego types, and his often analytical and abstract approach to conversations, and his occasional forays into discussing important principles more readily than details, as signals of Ti values. Those signals are fuzzier, especially occasional discussion of principles -- the LII doesn't usually tend to express their principles as dogmatic ideologies that they rant about, in the way that can be seen sometimes in the spontaneous ideological ranting of LSIs and SLEs -- it's harder sometimes to see this type as ideological, because, they present themselves as more flexible than ideologically principled, and the discussions of principles and codes, however abstract, could just be explained as passing concepts in conversation that aren't very indicative of highly structured or principled thinking. Which is true, I don't view this observation as very definitive.

It doesn't seem very likely to see him as an extrovert, although sometimes the Ne dominants can have a mix of passivity in boldness; they usually are more principally bold in spite of their avoidant tendencies, while silveranstavern in my view is more principally passive, despite his boldness.